Smithwick

Kilcreene House, the home of the Smithwick family for many generations and now a hospital, in Kilkenny, was first built, according to Peter Smithwick, in 1660. The lands of Kilcreene were originally owned by the Rothe family and then after the Cromwellian War they were acquired by Sir Henry Bayley Meredith[1]. The Smithwick family bought the lands from the Merediths.

Kilcreene Lodge was built on lands in the possession of Richard Cole. He got a lease of the land from the Ormondes – a portion of St. Francis Abbey Brewery. According to Walter Smithwick, Peter’s father, the house was a Miller’s house as there was a linen bleach there and the remains of a retting pond could still be seen not more than four hundred yards from the property. John Smithwick, the son of Edmond Smithwick (d.1876) was the first of the family to live at Kilcreene Lodge in 1861 after his marriage to Christina Devereux, whose father owned a distillery in Bishopswater in Co. Wexford.

[1] He was married to one of the Butlers of Lanesborough – Lodge.s Peerage of Ireland

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